Photo Essay: Somalia

Check out this photo essay on refugees in Southern Somalia: "No Place to Hide." So dismal.

Trade blowback

Hmm... remember all those trade issues we've been having recently with China? Well, apparently they've noticed too: "China to investigate US car subsidies." I hope this serves as a lesson for our wobbly-on-trade president.

From recession to stagnation

Apparently the US' recession is over: "US economy grows by 3.5%." We still face a long haul and hopefully quite a bit of reform, but this is good news.

Poor newspapers...

From The Economist

Sometimes all you can do is laugh

There are really some things that can only be said through satire. Check out this Onion article, the title says it all: "U.S. Continues Quagmire Building Mission in Afghanistan."

Sen. Kerry on Counterinsurgency

I think Sen. Kerry is on a roll, and I'm glad to see that he is bucking the general inertia towards escalation in the Afghan war. His remarks from a recent press conference:

" 'We cannot and we should not undertake a manpower-intensive counterinsurgency operation on a national scale in Afghanistan,' said Kerry, D-MA, sounding a lot like his Senate cohort Carl Levin, D-MI, who has also advocated for a strategy centered around building up Afghan forces, not adding U.S. combat soldiers.

'I am convinced, from my conversations with General Stanley McChrystal ... he understands the necessity of conducting a smart counterinsurgency in a limited geographic area,' Kerry went on, 'But I believe his current plan reaches too far too fast.' "

I think I can live with limited counterinsurgency, as long as our strategy explicitly acknowledges the limits of this approach and shies away from our recent grandiose ambitions for Afghanistan. I read somewhere recently that Kerry might make a good Secretary of State, and I have to admit his thinking on the big issues have been a lot more interesting than Sec. Clinton's...

The Garbage Island

I have been really fascinated and horrified by the great pacific garbage patch for some time. If you don't know, we have basically ruined out oceans and perhaps the most stunning evidence of that is a gigantic cluster of floating plastic in the middle of the pacific ocean. The picture above is part of a photo essay on decomposing birds, which have been raised on plastic from the garbage island. The video below is a short program filmed by a ship that sailed through the garbage patch. I don't know why we don't talk about our oceans more, this is a problem that is already a catastrophy today.

Foreign Service Officer resigns over Afghan war

This is a really interesting story, both because of this guy's personal story and his analysis: "U.S. official resigns over Afghan war."

George Soros is right

Check out this short article in on an interview with George Soros: "Soros calls Wall St. profits 'gifts' from state." He is absolutely right about this and it is entirely intentional effect of recent policy. That banks are being recapitalized in the process is the point (although its a tricky way of going about it), but why anyone deserves a "performance" bonus when their "profits" come from government fiat is beyond me. I guess we have to keep up the illusion...?

Photo Essay

Check out this photo essay: “Pollution in China.” Really heartbreaking stuff, but crucial to keep in mind as we all marvel at the PRC's economic growth sprint.

Unbelievable

Check out this crazy story about how Wall St. chiefs are snubbing an Obama fundraiser in NYC: "Wall St. Giants Reluctant to Donate to Democrats." Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

This is enough to literally make me gag:

Dr. Daniel E. Fass, another chairman of the event who lives surrounded by financiers in Greenwich, Conn., said: “The investment community feels very put-upon. They feel there is no reason why they shouldn’t earn $1 million to $200 million a year, and they don’t want to be held responsible for the global financial meltdown.” Dr. Fass added, “How much that will be reflected in their support for the president remains to be seen.”

Intense story

Check out the five part series that David Rohde of the NY Times is writing about his months of captivity with the Taliban: "Held by the Taliban."

Great article on the future of political science

This is a really interesting article on how confused the field of political science is about its relevance and direction: "Field Study- Just How Relevant Is Political Science?"

I felt the issues discussed in the article very keenly at Columbia. I believe the very best political science comes from applying rigorous empirical analysis to the underlying assumptions of broader questions, my favorite example being a paper I read on whether the "hate radio" accused of fermenting genocide in Rewanda actually played such a central role. (It didn't- the paper demonstrated that b/c of the hilly geography the radio had a very limited range and the chronology of the Rwandan genocide didn't match the pattern of inflamatory broadcasts.) This particular question was of central importance because of the way the radio station's history was used in prosecuting war crimes and in rebutting claims that Western governments could have "just simply bombed the radio transmiters to stop the genocide." But for the broadest (and most important questions) I think you are into political philosophy or history.

Karzai caves

I can only imagine the conversation between Sen. Kerry and Pres. Karzai before this announcement: "Kawzai Agrees to Nov. 7 Runoff."
Afghanistan is heading towards some sort of "constitutional coup" in my opinion... the US gov't is obviously looking for some legalistic way to push Karzai out of the loop. At least we're not having him shot in the back of an APC like our last client in a counterinsugency.

On the Goldstone report

It is hard for me to disagree with this editorial from the FT: "Goldstone's Gaze report is balanced."

Kicking down doors on Wall st.

This is the sort of news I would like to see a lot more of in the near future: "Wiretapping reminiscent of tackling mobsters." I find it funny that the FT seems to find wiretapping "white collar" criminals so outrageous (and its an interesting question, Was recent financial fraud really that much less harmful than the drug trade in this country, etc?), but it's nice to see American regulators get serious about fraud on Wall st. I suspect that there will be much more to come considering the ways in which people made money in the run up to the crisis, plus the small stuff seems rampant.

I hope it was worth it...

A great chart from The Economist.

How is the stimulus doing?

Here's a short article on the early effects of the administration's stimulus package: "Stimulus sustains 30,000 jobs." Obviously way too early to draw any conclusions, but interesting nonetheless.

Explaining the problem with Goldman

John Gapper of the FT is doing a two part column on Goldman right now, the first half of which is very reasonable and realistic (rare for stuff on Goldman, which is usually either written by flaks for the bank or ppl who hate it): "A credibility problem for Goldman."

My favorite quote:

"Thus, at the heart of the financial system, now sits a professionals-only, high-risk Wall Street firm with its own private equity and hedge funds arrayed on top of a nonpareil corporate and government client list, which taxpayers reasonably assume is gambling with their money.
You do not have to be a vampire squid-style conspiracy theorist to see the difficulty. Goldman wants to carry on as its old self (but bigger) in a world that has changed."

Baby steps on climate change

This article provides a great example of the small, easy stuff that I am probably most interested in when it comes to addressing climate change: "A Greenhouse Gas That's Already A Commodity." It's amazing to me that you'd actually have to convince the leadership of companies that this is a good idea- it makes money, right?

What caused the crash: the one sentence explanation

I really like this op-ed: "Wall Street Smarts." It's funny and short, but I think it honestly captures a lot of the pressures that made people do the wrong things for the wrong reasons in the late 90s and 2000s.

Frontline: Obama's War

Here is the full episode of Frontline on the Afghan War:



Here's the link to the PBS site for the episode, which has lots of great supplemental stuff (maps, interviews, documents, etc.). I'd recommend checking it out. Powerful stuff.

What a smaller footprint in A-stan might look like

For those of you wondering (as I have to be honest) what a truly smaller military footprint in Afghanistan might look like, here's a serious attempt to out the "counterterrorism approach": "What a CT mission in Afghanistan would actually look like."

I think that sounds pretty good, but it would hinge on how long we could remain in Afghanistan without completely eroding the legitimacy of our mission.

Great news for Armenia and the South Caucasus

Turkey and Armenia are finally on the path towards normalizing their bilateral relations. Although this event directly affects a small corner of the earth, I think this is a huge deal. When I was living in Yerevan I cannot overstate the extent to which Armenia's sealed border with Turkey warped daily life in that impoverished country and in the region as a whole. Even for a comparatively wealthy American, travel from Armenia to Turkey was prohibitively expensive and full of hassles, involving either a flight (once a week I think) to far away Istambul or a very bumpy car ride hours north to Georgia and then over the border into Turkey. And this despite the fact that Turkey was literally close enough to look at. This move will hopefully bring some much needed dynamism to both Armenia and the South Caucasus as a whole.

The picture above is of Mount Ararat. I took it from the balcony of my apartment and saw it almost every day just like the other residents of Yerevan, Armenia's capital and largest city. Ararat is a sacred mountain for Armenians and plays a central role in their national identity (its even on their national coat of arms- its the mountain right in the middle). However, since Ararat is just across the border it has been very difficult to visit and served as a constant reminder of the painfully strained relations with neighboring Turkey, over the Armenian-Azeri war earlier in the 1990s and the historical questions surrounding the Armenian genocide (or whatever you want to call it, not trying to be provocative). That mountain always felt to me like a looming reminder of the the artificial cleavages left in the wake the wars of the 1990s, and honestly even as a visitor I found it galling that I couldn't really visit. Hopefully that will soon change.

Update: If you're interested in a concise rundown of the issues involved with the detente, check out this article at Foreign Policy.

The PRC is still on a roll in Africa

Here's some further evidence that China is totally remaking Africa's relationship with the rest of the world, and reducing Western influence there in the process. I'm not sure there's a moral valence to this, but it certainly is going on: "China in push for resources in Guinea."

Barack Obama, Nobel laureate

It's a big day for videos on this blog, huh?! Here's Pres. Obama's speech reacting to his recent award.



I like his response, I think it takes this award and casts it in the best possible light while attempting to use it to further his particular causes/policies. However, I find something that Obama explicitly acknowledged in his speech uncomforable: "And I know that throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes." Obama considers this prize a nudge by the Nobel commission (I don't know why I care what they think anyways, but here goes) towards a certain type of American policies and politics, and I agree with him.

Don't get me wrong, I find some of those policies and causes attractive and I generally think Obama's vision for the world is a positive one. But I can't help being rubbed the wrong way, just a bit by what amounts to a very public intervention in American politics. And if this sort of intervention- an honor no less!-causes me to react this way, I can't help but worry about how people in the developing world feel when we come and tell them to run their governments or live their lives a certain way.

I think this is actually one of the central ironies of American foreign policy- we jealously guard our sovereignty as a "city on a hill" yet insist on preaching our gospel to everybody else (something that Reinhold Nieburh commented on best and far more eloquently in The Irony of American History if you're interested).

In any case, a "teachable" moment for me. I wonder if anyone else reacted this way?

Rep. Alan Grayson on A-stan

I'm not familiar with his politics, so I can't say that I endorse the man in any way, but I think this is insightful commentary on what the "best foreign policy" is for the US- "leave people alone." I admire him for taking this stance, there isn't anyone else in government willing to say it.

Perfect hilarity at Glenn Beck's expense

If you've ever been annoyed with Glenn Beck, you must watch this...

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bend It Like Beck
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

Obama wins Peace prize?

I just don't get it... and I don't think it will end well for any parties involved. Gideon Rachman sums up my feelings perfectly:

"I am a genuine admirer of Obama. And I am very pleased that George W Bush is no longer president. But I doubt that I am alone in wondering whether this award is slightly premature. It is hard to point to a single place where Obama’s efforts have actually brought about peace - Gaza, Iran, Sri Lanka? The peace prize committee say that he is being rewarded for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy”. But while it is OK to give school children prizes for “effort” - my kids get them all the time - I think international statesmen should probably be held to a higher standard.

It is also very odd timing. In the next couple of weeks, Obama is likely to yield to the wishes of his generals and to send many thousands more troops to Afghanistan. That will mean he is a wartime president, just as much as Bush or Lyndon Johnson. If Afghanistan ends up being Obama’s Vietnam, giving him the Nobel Peace Prize will look even sillier in a few years time." (his orignal post is here)

Yeah, remember that war in err... Afghanistan?

Drought in East Africa

Whether its the result of climate change or simply a weather cycle, there are a ton of people in serious trouble in East Africa: "Even the Camels Are Dying." As if the constant warfare wasn't enough...

Where did American conservatism go so wrong?

I highly recommend reading this long-ish article on the intellectual history of the American conservative movement: "Conservatism Is Dead."
Of interest regardless your personal political leanings...

Obama shifts China policy

US diplomacy has long used "bumper sticker" stype phrases to encapsulate the essence of a major policy ("containment", "clear, hold, build", etc.). Under Bush 43, the all encapsulating phrase of the US' policy towards China was "responsible stakeholder," which appeared endlessly in the Administration's communications on China. Obama seems to have very quitely shifted to a new phrase: "strategic reassurance."
I think this is a very big deal, and in fact is a huge shift. It is a sign of a more realist, pragmatic approach to China and is more in tune with efforts at creating a real partnership between the world's two most important countries. I always felt like calling for China to become a "responsible stakeholder" in the international system (which we created...) sounded like the scolding of a disappointed parent... Im glad to see that the new China team has less of a tin ear.

Interesting insight into UK politics

Check out this comment piece fromt the FT about the foreign policy dynamics in the Tory bid to unseat Labour in the upcoming election: "Little Englanders are of little use to America." There are some interesting lessons to be drawn about the 'special relationship', English politics and the UK's place in Europe in this little piece.

You will not be eating fish in 30 years

Or at least you won't if current trends are any guide... the worldwide stock of fisheries is terrifyingly close to depletion: "Aquapolyse Now."

The global over-exploitation of fish stocks and the rampaging of our ocean's ecosystems will be familiar to anyone who regularly reads The Economist, but other than them I am always shocked at how little attention this gets. If you're interested The Economist did a special report on this not too long ago: "Plenty of fish in the sea?"

So... this is akward...

Apparently Iranian president Ahmadinejad is really just the most flagrant self-hating jew in history? This is truly a bizarre twist: "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed to have a Jewish past."
Seriously, Israel would be compelled to grant him citizenship if he asked, right?

Update: this may or may not be true... I've read conflicting reports. Anyone have any insight? Either way its a great story.

Noah Schachman's photo diary

Check it out, he took some amazing shots: "Shootouts, Pot Fields and Spy Drones: Danger Room in Afghanistan." I am really amazed at the high quality of coverage that we're starting to get out of Afghanistan and the maturity and dynamism of the debate taking place on the war. I apologize if this blog is too Afghan War-heavy at the moment... its just the elephant in the room for me.

Front Line: "Obama's War"

This is absolutely not something to miss if you're at all interested in the Afghan War. It airs online and on PBS on Oct. 13th at 9pm... I'll repost the website to watch it on then, but for now here's their rough cut teaser:

Khalaf on Sanctions

Here's a great news analysis piece by my favorite Middle East correspondent Roula Khalaf of the FT on why sanctions are unlikely to be effective in altering the Iranian governments behavior: "Sanctions would trap west as much as Tehran." Sobering analysis that begs the question, Then where do we go?

Sen. Kerry on Iran

Here's an intelligent comment piece from Sen. Kerry on where to head on Iran: "Time for diplomacy to end standoff with Iran." I don't know about you, but I am very impressed with his career in the Senate post-2004. I think he's right, taking "yes" for an answer will be the hardest part for us...

Happy Bday PRC

Here is the treasure trove of pictures from China's 60th birthday party we've all been waiting for: Xinhua